Preliminary II of the Concept Paper/Dissertation/Margith Strand

Statement of the Problem

Distance Education has been a field in which the focus has been on the areas of learning and teaching; educators have been directed to improve their vision on what makes the “good facilitator” and what makes the student “tick” in their sense of ambition and drive in regards to the online venue of their education. To this effect, the author of this paper has found that a large percentage of the literature has been focused on the topic of “collaborative” research, where the interaction of the student population is of interest and the manner in which they “speak” and develop their ideas with each other is taught at seminars and books in the field [2].

My approach is to take a discursive look at the field of Distance Education within the context of learning and teaching through the utilization of Discourse Analysis. The Discourse Analytical technique and methodology which I am intending to use include the following components: in-text, narrative analyses, discursive formation, register theory, text semantics, genre theory, intertexuality, cohesion analysis, attitudinal-evaluative meaning, theme-rheme analysis, and conversation analysis. [1]

Each of these components of the analysis are designed in my study to yield information which will support a model of distance education in which the contextual features are revealed according to the subject matter and area of focus of the subject field. This analytical approach in studying the field of distance education in a discoursive fashion can be applied to all of the subject matter fields.

Research Goals
My research goal is to seek a network framework which encompasses the contextual information contained within the discussion threads of Science courses which have been offered at a higher education, postsecondary online college and yield the Discourse Analytic framework information as analyzed through the Atlas.ti software system. The end result of this study is to develop a prototypical study which can be applied to other fields of subject matter and research.

History
The origination of this study began when the author of this paper sought the development of the political, sociological, educational, and economic (in the efficiency factor definition of the term) of the distance education basis of communication. The end result of the search was the decision to take the Discourse Analysis route as described above.


Limitations of the Study
The limitations of the study are involved in the boundary regions of the information used during the analysis stage of the study. The application of the Atlas.ti software should reveal a bountiful amount of information which can subsequently be studied for further framework-related data.



Bibliography

1. http://Academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/theories.htm

2. The Virtual Student: A Profile and Guide, co-authored with Keith Pratt, PhD , San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, March 2003.

“Metacommunication,” “Online Orientation,” and “Critical Dialogues” in Encyclopedia of Distributed Learning. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

“Beyond the Looking Glass: What Faculty and Students Need to Be Successful Online,” co-authored with Keith Pratt, PhD in Rudestam, K.E. and Schoenholtz-Read, J., Handbook of Online Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, February, 2002.

Lessons from the Cyberspace Sandbox: The Realities of Online Teaching, co-authored with Keith Pratt, PhD , San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, March 2001.

Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom, co-authored with Keith Pratt, PhD , San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999. Winner of the Frandson Award for Excellence in Literature in Adult or Continuing Education, University Continuing Education Association, April 2000.

Effective Teaching and Learning in the Virtual Classroom, Published in the proceedings of the XV. IFIP World Computer Congress, Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary, September, 1998.

Playing in the Cyberspace Sandbox: The Importance of Community in Distance Learning, Published in the proceedings of the XV. IFIP World Computer Congress, Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary, September 1998.

Playing in the Cyberspace Sandbox: The Intersection of the Human and Electronic Communities, Published on ERIC, October 1994.

Playing in the Cyberspace Sandbox: The Intersection of the Human and Electronic Communities, electronic publication on Cybermind:

[http://www.curtin.edu.au/conference/cybermind/papers/index.html]